k.b. wrote:I think the state of mind of a soldier in the Napoleonic era must have been fascinating!
Dutch courage (or gin in the case of the British) must have certainly played a big part in helping them face the harshness of a European winter as well as giving them added resilience to confront a more formidable/numerous foe or even a charge from enemy heavy cavalry.
This kind of one versus one confrontation in the early morning mist is obviously a romantised scenario, (inspired in part by the cavalry duel in the Duellists), that wasn’t perhaps very common…. but just to try and put myself in the skin of either of these two combatants with their different weapons and skills required sets my imagination working at full tilt.
I really need to compose a reading list of titles to expand my comprehension of the period. I recently finished reading Bernard Cornwell’s Waterloo for the umpteenth time and it never fails to inspire.
Any suggestions gents?
A superb setting of these two fine Napoleonic cavalrymen, in one to one combat. Great photography too.
I agree with your comments regarding the courage needed to engage in face to face combat armed with these murderous weapons. John Keegan in his famous book 'The Face of Battle' considers this and is worth reading. All too often one or other unit would stop or retreat rather than getting to grips with sabre, bayonet or whatever. Bayonet wounds were comparatively rare, and although I suspect that wounds to cavalrymen inflicted by swords or lances were more common, these would still not be as numerous as we might suppose.